Bleeding Knucles
by BIFF1
Summary: In which Mac gets in a fist fight defending Dick's honour and Dick is suitably impressed. Rated for language


**Bleeding knuckles**

* * *

Mac had never been in a fight before. Not a physical fight. She just didn't have the temperament, that was so much more Veronica's thing rather than her.

But she's throwing her fist into this girls pretty tan face with all the force she can find.

The girl staggers back, "you BITCH!" She screeches and if the violent act hadn't already pulled the attention of everyone in the quad that certainly did.

The girl launches herself at Mac and she falls backward onto the grass, the slam of her back into the hard ground and the weight of the girl wind her but Mac still finds the strength to box the girls ears as she heaves for air.

She can hear the age old playground chant as the girl sends her knees into Mac's sides.

A growl rips from Mac's throat and she flips them over and with a handful of the blond locks she slams the girls head into the ground as she send a fist into Mac's nose.

There's something warm on her face and it takes her a moment to realise it's blood.

"Bitch!"

"Slut!" The blonde screams in return.

A pair of hands grab her sides and lift her away from the girl, she kicks out connecting solidly with the girls chest, "Cum guzzling dick mitten!" She screams out struggling to free herself from the strong arms wrapped around her middle.

"Cock pocket!" The girl snaps back rubbing her hair were Mac's fingers had ripped at the blonde tresses.

"I will make you disappear bitch!"

"Okay that's enough of that." The arms shift and she finds herself thrown over a wide shoulder that belongs to whoever had pulled her out of the fight.

The body turns and starts walking away from the scene of the crime, towards Greek row.

* * *

She's wiping at her bleeding noise with bruised knuckles and looking at the back of the man carrying her off.

"Dick?"

"Yeah Mac-Attack?"

"You can put me down now."

"You're not going to go back and finish the job are you?" He asks walking up the lawn of what she assumes must be the pi sig house.

She sighs heavily, "no I'm not.

His hands are on her waist again and she's lowered back to the ground. Yep it's the Pi Sig house, he sits her down on the front steps.

"How's the nose champ?" He asks rifling through his pockets and coming out with a handkerchief. He hands her the pristine embroidered square and she looks at it for a long moment before he sighs, takes it back and applies it directly to the blood still spilling out of Mac's nose.

"But it'll get dirty..."

"It's kinda what there for." He smiles at her and it's soft and warms something in her gut.

He's gently wiping away the blood, and with his free hand he tilts her head back to stop the blood flow.

"So what did Kennedy say to make you go all UFC on her ass."

"Kennedy?"

"Yeah...the girl whose face you messed up..." He laughs and pulls away to look at her properly.

She can only imagine what he see's, there must be blood all over her shirt and her knuckles feel bruised, her hair is messed up from that bitch's hands and she's holding his handkerchief to her nose.

"You didn't know her name?"

Mac shrugs.

"Then what the hell made you fight her. I mean I'd get it if you knew her she's kinda a cow."

Mac shrugs again and shifts her body away from his.

It's embarrassing. She over reacted. She'd just saw red.

"Come on Mac, Logan's going to want details." She smirks at that, because yeah, he is. He's a gossip hound.

"She was talking shit abo..." The rest of the words trail off into nothing. If there's any blood left in her body it's gone straight to her skin because she can feel the blush creep up all over.

"Cindy..." Its the first time he's ever used her real name and she blinks at him confused. She didn't even know he knew it. It sounds so intimate in his mouth.

"She was talking shit about you." She finishes focusing on his knees, anything but his face.

"What..."

"She was saying terrible things about you..."

"You went to the mat...for me?" His voice is so shocked that she looks up at him, his eyes are wide and focused on her and there's a blush to his skin she's never seen before. She didn't think Dick Casablancas was capable of blushing.

"Yeah well...we're friends right...that's what friends do..." She reason's but she's never gotten physical in Veronica's name before and there had been plenty of opportunities. She'd never punched anyone for Parker, never slammed someone's head into the ground for Logan or Wallace.

"Wait here I'm going to get you some ice for your hands." He tells her his voice kind of in awe as he removes himself from the front step and disappears into the frat house.

She sits there looking out at the well maintained lawns of greek row and wonders what V is going to say about this. She probably already knows she got into a fight. That's going to be hard enough to explain but when she finds out it was because of Dick...she can only imagine the look of confusion and maybe disgust on her friends face. It's just that no one has any right to compare Dick to his brother and she knows somehow that without a doubt however irrational it is that she'd _go to the mat _again. Dick may have been a lot of things but he was not his brother.

A stiff breeze picks up and the clouds start to move in dropping the temperature. Wrapping her arms around herself she wishes for something more significant than the thin long sleeve with blood down the front.

The chill is sinking into her bones when Dick reappears with a bag of ice. He sits down next to her on the steps and pulls a hand into his lap. Her breath catches as his fingers move softly across her skin, taking inventory of her injuries.

He puts her hand in his palm and with fingers resting on her wrist starts to ice her knuckles.

She's glad that her nose has stopped bleeding because watching Dick focus on her hand with a soft expression, and the feel on his skin on hers is making her heart pound.

Since when is Dick gentle? Dick was loud and boisterous, his ego and personality too big for his body. He wasn't supposed to be sweet and gentle.

It wasn't fair.

"Why are you taking care of me?" She asks softly the words almost lost in the over dramatic roll of thunder. She jumps a little and watches as rain makes its way towards the porch of the house in a wall.

He looks up at her and their eyes lock. For a brief moment she's sure he's going to try and kiss her again. She doesn't think she'd stop him this time.

"We're friends right? This is what friends do." He tells her throwing her own words back at her. She wonders if they sounded so much like a lie in her own mouth as well.

The chill in the air finally gets to her and she wraps her free arm around her middle and shivers. Dick's attention is immediately pulled from her hand.

"Cold?"

She shrugs.

He gives her back her hand and she's sorry for the loss of his touch in a way that sends a shock of blush across her face. The blush is intensified as Dick pulls his sweater off over his head revealing his bare chest underneath. He doesn't give her the chance to turn him down, he pushes the sweater down over her head.

"Dick I can't-"

"Why not?" He asks simply as if he's not suddenly bare chested outside with a rain storm just a foot away.

She waves a hand at him, his sweater sitting on her shoulders like a scarf, "cause your not wearing a shirt? Cause it's raining? You're gonna get in trouble for indecent exposure." She finishes lamely.

He scoffs at that, "please. They'd give me a medal and a parade, have you seen me?" He asks humorously, eyebrow raised, "now put the sweater on your cold." He reaches over and shimmies it over her shoulders.

She let's him pull the sweater over her. Amazed when he pushes his hands up the sleeves to gently pull her arms through them as well.

"I'm not an invalid Dick." She grumbles but she's not really all that upset with him.

He holds his hands up in fake surrender a grin pulling across his face. Another roll of thunder shocks them both and she watches as his mussels tense across his chest.

"Let's wait this out inside."

Mac turns to look at the door of the frat house, under the storm she can hear the chaos of a dozen or so boys doing lord knows what. Honestly she's pretty sure she'd rather take her chances with the storm.

He leans forward and he's so impossibly close that she can smell the lingering scent of his shampoo. His mouth is close to her ear, not so close that she can feel it on her skin, but close enough that all the hair on the back of her neck rises.

"Their not that bad Mackie."

"I..." She sputters out as he leans back, his eyes big and bright and focused so intensely on her. Her throat goes dry, her gut tightens and an entirely inappropriate warmth settles in her.

"Come on we can hide in my room and play halo or something." He stands up and she's surprised at herself for following him. She's not sure why she's so surprised. They are supposed to be friends there is no reason why this should be weird.

She follows Dick into the house and there's a sudden silence in the house as a myriad of eyes glue to them. And it feels like they are judging her and that's just not fair, she was just in a fight.

"You the girl that kicked the shit out of Kennedy?" One boy asks and in response Dick lifts one of her arms high over her head, "nice." The boy nodded and slowly the frat house began its low roll of chaos back up.

It took a moment for Mac to realise that Dick was still holding her hand. Leading her to his room by the hand. His warm fingers curved softly around her like he was worried he'd hurt her.

After everything that had happened between them, the years of abuse and ignoring each other...Cassidy...how was it possible that she could be here now, letting Dick lead her to his bedroom in a fucking frat house. The fact that they could even look at each other now was a miracle.

He pushed his bedroom door open. A nice smallish sized corner room, with windows on two walls. The windows let in a soft almost greenish glow from the storm. The sound of rain pounding down on the glass and siding vibrated through the room.

"I'll be honest I expected it to be messier." She tells him sliding her hand out of his and moving to sit on the made bed. She looks up from the relatively clothing and junk free floor to Dick who is standing stock still by the door, his eyes wide and focused on her, the same soft blush infiltrating his normally tan face, his bare chest almost heaving.

He's biting his lip.

"What's wrong?" She asks nervous, looking behind her out at the storm.

"You have no right looking that good." His voice is a kind of hoarse whisper but the only other sound in the room is the rain so she hears every shaking syllable.

"What?" She must have heard him wrong, she looks down at herself, after all she isn't wearing anything special or all that revealing, she's wearing jean shorts, not even short shorts, just shorts that ride up to mid thigh when she sits. And cleavage isn't even possible in Dick's sweater, her hair she can feel is a matted mess, her noise feels red and probably swollen and the skin is ripped open on all of the knuckles of one hand, "are you crazy?"

"Sitting on my bed in my fraternity sweater?" he raises an eyebrow as if she's crazy not to see what's appealing about this.

"I look like I was dragged in by a cat. My hair is a rats nest and there's blood on me still." She responds like these are obvious reasons why he is crazy.

Dick finally moves, closing the door, he sits down on the bed next to her and his fingers brush along her cheek, "you got in your very first fight defending my honour, and kicked ass...you look amazing." His eyes are hypnotic. he's so close to her, too close, not close enough, and he's bare chested and the heat is somehow rolling off his half naked form and she's ninety percent sure he's leaning in to kiss her.

She's a hundred percent sure she wants him too.

She leans up into him and presses her lips against his. His response is instant, his mouth moving against hers his hands grabbing onto her pushing his sweater away from her hips trying to get at skin.

He's pushing her slightly down onto the bed and she let's him. His skin feels amazing and she can't remember why she didn't let him kiss her before this.

The sound of a zipper fills the room and it takes her a moment to realise it's hers.

"What do you think you're doing?" She asks as calmly as possible with her chest heaving for air against his.

"I thought..." He puts his hand up in surrender, "I thought you wanted..."

"Just because I'm okay with making out with you doesn't mean you can skip ahead to sex."

"Skip ahead..." She nods, "like there's going to be more of this..." She nods, "that will eventually..." She pulls his mouth back down to crash into hers and that smug bastard is smiling and she kind of loves it.

* * *

A/N: just a little one shot I had sitting in my doc manager. I just love the idea of Mac going to the mat for Dick of all people and this kinda just poured out from there. sidenote those insults are from _Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. _


End file.
